Air-dry clay jewellery

Since joining the local library and Pinterest I have had the urge to try all kind of different crafts. Some have been a success, others not so much, others were okay, but need a bit of practice. I think this venture falls into the latter category.

I used Das air-drying clay to make some pendants. I found some random items around the house for rolling, cutting and creating textures. I found a nifty little set of pokers (no idea what they’re really called, but they poke holes in things) at the hardware store, and I already had some acrylic paint and unused clear nail polish as varnish.

Most of the pendants I painted with a base colour (silver, blue or pink) and when that was dry I painted over with a darker, watered-down colour, which I wiped off with a damp cloth to give the patterns more definition.

I wasn’t thrilled with the results, but the general idea has promise. Some lessons learned:

Make an effort to roll the clay evenly and cut the edges cleanly.My pendants were of varying thicknesses, which isn’t a bid deal unless you want to use them in the same project. I also found some cheap cookie cutters, which I’ll use next time; they should give a bit of a cleaner cut than the piping bag tip I used the first time.

Make the threading holes bigger, or thread jump rings before they dry because some of the holes just aren’t big enough for jump rings and one of the pendants got a bit smushed around the hole where I tried to put one in.The pendants are hard enough, but not very sturdy, so they don’t take a lot of forcing when it comes to threading them.

I used cheap clear nail polish to varnish them, partly because it’s what I had on hand, and partly because I couldn’t find anything else that seemed suitable. I didn’t like the nail polish much; it is stinky (even a bit after drying), and seems slightly tacky after drying too. I found some hard-drying Mod Podge, which I’ll try next time.

Try a variety of patterns and don’t be too sad if some don’t work out. I was surprised how much I liked the rain cloud stamp, and how some others (like the key) didn’t work out as well as I’d thought they would.

I’ve made a Tumblr blog to post photos of my craft creations, so feel free to follow that if you’re interested.

Hi Heather, thanks! I used a 15mm knitting needle 😛 I pretty much just looked around my house for something round and the knitting needle looked right. I also keep a clean wine bottle in a kitchen drawer to use as a pastry roller, which would probably work alright too; you need a bottle with a body that is fairly straight (or uniformly round), I guess chardonnay bottles are no good, but sauvignon blanc or red wine bottles usually have a pretty tall & straight body.